Tidbinbilla

Tidbinballa is a nature preserve about 30 minites from town. The name comes from an Aboriginal word for "rite of passage."

In 2003 a huge bush fire swept through the area, destroying everything; it even made it into Canberra, burning 500 homes and killing 4 people. Much of the land is nearly barren, and there are charred tree trunks everywhere. In Tidbinbilla, it killed every koala in the area except for one (named Lucky), who is still recovering from his burns. Parts of the park are still closed

But it's still amazing. As soon as we entered, we saw this:

We didn't know that emus had so many chicks (there were 7; that's a pretty big omelet).

The kangaroo enclosure was closed, but we went on a walk around a wetlands area, where the views were impressive. The white dot in the sky is the moon, which was on call waiting to the CDSCC. In one of the ponds we saw a platypus, which was making lazy laps but not surfacing long enough for Susan to get a picture.

Kangaroos everywhere - we counted close to 100.

That's John Hart with the kids.
Here's a black swan, a bird native to Australia.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled week.